This motley graffiti house was a thorn in the eye of many. In the 1990s, it even occupied the judiciary and led to a landmark ruling: Since then, it has been allowed to decorate one's own house with art and graffiti. And that is exactly what the owner and artist Annamalt does to this day.
Annamalt - that's the name of the visual artist from the Eifel who has travelled the world a lot and lives with and in her art in her colourful house in Föhren near Trier.
Her house is a total work of art from the outside and inside: the floor - a colourful flow of colours in all the colours of the rainbow. The bathroom walls painted with colourful geometric shapes - inspired by African painting. The colourful graffiti-sprayed exterior façade attracts curious passers-by time and again. Ringing the doorbell is allowed and when Annamalt has time, she is happy to show her unusual and colourful home.
An armchair made from an old car tyre, a tabby hairdresser's cap as a lamp, a telephone with spikes as an art object. With Annamalt, there is something to discover in every corner. She transforms everyday objects into art objects. Some of them, like the kitchen lamp she made from an old measuring jug, are reminiscent of upcycling. But when Annamalt started turning wheelbarrows into living room chairs more than 20 years ago, nobody was talking about upcycling. Back then, she and her life partner wanted to live with and in art and not just look at art on canvases. The fun of creating something themselves instead of just going to the shop and buying things - that was their drive.
So her house became more and more colourful and a joint art and life project with her partner, the artist Edward Naujok, who has since passed away. In 2014, the artist couple even received the Rhineland-Palatinate Peace Prize for their commitment.
Initially, however, there was some resistance to the colourful house. Complaints piled up from the community when the house was given the striking graffiti façade in the early 1990s - a joint effort with children and young people. There were even several court disputes, which in the end led to a groundbreaking landmark ruling: since then, it has been permitted to design the façade of one's own house as a work of art if there is an artistic and creative claim.
For Annamalt and her partner, this was the starting signal in 1997. The two began to transform their house. They added on and extended the small farmhouse, which is about 150 years old, created space for Annamalt's studio and her large-format paintings and Edward Naujok's sculptures. Even though the colourful house was initially eyed critically in the village, in the meantime many children and adults spontaneously drop by to visit it. For many school classes, a visit is part of their art lessons. And the municipality's website now lists the artists' house as a place of interest.
Annamalt only started her life as an artist when she was already in her late 30s and her son was out of the woods. She gave up her job to make a living from art with her partner. In the early days, she often had to take on part-time jobs, but through funded art projects and workshops she managed to concentrate more and more on her creative work.
Today, after Edi Naujok's death, she continues to run the Künstlerhaus alone and paints her pictures in the studio rooms. Socially critical subjects such as war, flight and expulsion are often the focus. Her paintings are almost all figurative and denounce contemporary grievances.
In 2022, Annamalt celebrates a special anniversary: the 25th anniversary of the Künstlerhaus and the art judgement of 1997. The motto of the anniversary is "The colours are free - 25 years of Künstlerhaus Föhren".
A film by Sabine Keller (editing), Stefanie Vier (camera), Max Tiemann (sound) and Alexander Jung (editing).
00:00 Life in an artists' house
01:24 Living room
03:34 Kitchen
05:10 Bathroom
08:03 Winter Garden
08:50 Facade
10:43 Studio
12:00 Bedroom
On the RU-vid channel of SWR Room Tour, people open the door to their unusual homes. On a very personal tour, they tell details about the fittings, furnishings and architecture and talk about their philosophy of life.
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13 июл 2024
